Lying In Bed Take Two
by BlueBolt
Summary: Jounouchi becomes depressed and tries to kill himself. It is his oldtime rival, Kaiba, who visits him in the hospital every night and draws him out of his misery. But when he gets out of the hospital, their relationship to each other changes dramatically.
1. Suicide

"Mr. Jounouchi, I just don't understand. You're not having problems understanding the basics of the material as far as I can tell. So explain to me why you haven't handed in a single piece of homework since January?" The teacher's face was unreadable to his student. Jounouchi found himself staring apathetically at the wrinkles of age and wisdom that licked up the corners of the middle-aged man's eyes and pressed shadows into his brow between his glasses. "Hm? Well? Are you having problems with your personal life?"

"I just don't get it. So I don't do it." He cast his gaze away, at the chalkboard, feeling a tight, angry clench in his chest at the list of assignments written neatly in white strokes. Resent in his expression, his eyes dropped to the line of dirt pressed up in the corner of the room, examining a crumpled up piece of paper to avoid making eye-contact.

"I'm here every day to offer help to those that need it. That's what I'm _here_ for, Mr. Jounouchi."

"Yeah, I know."

There was a sigh. Maybe he did feel a little guilty for pissing off his teachers like this, but it only frustrated him to sit down to schoolwork. It wasn't like he had other things to do, but he didn't see a point. He'd never be really good at it, so what did it matter if he ever handed stuff in or not? If someone actually smart like Yugi or Kaiba stopped working for no reason, people would actually care. They had good marks to lose, and applications to higher education to worry about. No school would take Jounouchi, no matter how hard he worked his ass off trying to understand these bullshit concepts and formulas and grammatical rules. He looked at his teacher.

"Don't waste your time on me. I know even if I try I'll fail, so there's no point in me trying. Less for you to mark. Focus on the people that're actually going places." Without leave, he stood up, grabbed his bag, and left the classroom. Nobody tried to stop him.

The returned test-paper felt like hot iron against his hand, mocking him and stinging his integrity, so Jounouchi stopped in the hallway to shove it angrily into his bag. He didn't even know why he was keeping it; maybe just to avoid the humiliation of somebody seeing it in a garbage can somewhere. His mood grew more sullen still as, arriving at the bike-rack, he saw nobody had bothered to wait for him. Not even Yugi. He felt disgusted that his best friend was so oblivious to the nightmarish depression that had begun to engulf his life. It was Yugi's fault for not noticing how unhappy he was, Yugi's fault for not being able to see past the false smiles and untrue reassurances.

It wasn't Yugi's fault, Jounouchi rationalized. It was his own for not reaching out – but why burden them with his own problems? It wasn't as though something were actually wrong. He had a part-time job and an apartment of his own. He'd stopped wasting money on duel cards. They held no appeal to him now... they were childish, pointless, and they'd get him nowhere because he wasn't anything special. That was how it always went, as far as Jou could tell: everything in life was pointless unless you were good at it. Why do homework if you know you'll fail? Why play cards if you know you'll lose? Only the best had any reason to push themselves.

He got on his bike, and the ride home seemed forever. Like a zombie, he pedalled without thinking, and crossed streets and avoided pedestrians automatically while his mind attempted to absorb just how impossible it was for him to accomplish anything impressive. He wanted to get home and sleep. He hoped nobody would call.

When he unlocked the door of his apartment, his keys stuck and, as he struggled to free them from the lock, Jounouchi found his frustrations roaring inside his torso which unexplainably began to shake with sobs. Ripping the keys out and throwing himself inside, he cried with a fervent shame and self-loathing. He knew his failure in life had to be his own fault, somehow. He couldn't even stop himself from weeping like a girl, clutching at his hair in a bid to claw away the gaping hole of loneliness that gripped his emotions mercilessly. Front door ajar still, he staggered down the hall to the bathroom, groping for the white bottle on the edge of the sink.

Take two, sleep through the night, wake up the next morning and do it all over again. Shoulders shaking with the effort of keeping himself from curling up into a ball on the floor, he clutched the bottle. He knew what they could do. It wasn't uncommon for him to wonder if he had the courage to do it. What effect would it have on the world? Who would mourn him? Yugi? He'd be upset for a bit, sure, but he had Yami to get him through it. Honda? He never bottled up his feelings. He'd be miserable for a while and then forget him and move on.

Was that really the entire list of people who'd care? Anger and misery flooded through him as he turned on the tap and leaned over to drink, splashing his hot face with the water's cold gush. Jounouchi pulled away, and sat on the edge of his tub. He took off the cap and poured the little white capsules out in his rough palm. One, two, three. Three would make him late for class and give him a headache the next day. Four, five, six. Six would put him in bed for the next week puking and feeling like an idiot. Seven, eight, nine. Maybe ten. Ten would be a nice, round number. He had never tried more than seven at once. He wasn't sure if it would kill him. Maybe he could just take whatever was left in the bottle. Wouldn't that be dramatic for whatever poor sucker found him in a few days?

One. His throat felt dry.

Two. Easier that time.

Three. Couldn't slow down, or he'd never get there.

Four. A group of teenagers was walking below the open window.

Five. They're being loud. They're laughing.

Six. He can hear them from the doorway.

Seven. Shit – he left the front door open. Oh well.

Eight. Something funny was going on in his stomach. He couldn't stop.

Nine. Only one mo-

"Jou?"

"Hey Jouno!"

"Jou, you left your door open."

"How the talk with Takeshi go?"

The bottle clattered against the floor as Jounouchi doubled up, fat, ugly pills rolling across the floor. He allowed himself one fraction of a second to laugh at it internally – at least he had something slightly dramatic and clichéd about his passing. Then he had to put his head between his knees and try not to be afraid of what would happen next.

"Holy _shit_. Someone call an ambulance!"

o o o o o

"Jounouchi." No answer. "Jounouchi Katsuya."

"He won't be in school for the next little while, sir." Honda hadn't had a chance to go to the teacher before class started to make him aware of the situation. Instead, now, he'd have to explain briefly in front of the class somehow without actually telling everyone what the poor guy had nearly done to himself. He found himself wilting under the weight of this duty. All it took was a brief look at Yami, who had agreed to take over control of Yugi's body to help him get through the day, to communicate his distress, and his friend took over.

"He had an accident, Mr. Takeshi. He's in the hospital for a few weeks, but he'll be back eventually."

"I see. Well, let's all hope he heals quickly so that he doesn't completely miss the new unit."

And that was the only visible stir created in the classroom by the rough-and-tumble blonde's disappearance. At lunch when Honda found himself cornered in the washrooms by Seto Kaiba, it was completely unexpected. He'd undone his zipper and set about the mundane task of emptying his bladder when the door opened and then closed. This was a normal sound, but the click of a lock immediately following it was not. There he was, leaning against the door with his hands in his pockets, his smirk uncaring and his eyes unyielding.

"What's this about Jounouchi getting into an accident? He forget to tie his shoes and fall down some stairs?"

Honda was staggered. This was hardly a day to have to tolerate Kaiba's taunting.

"What's it to you?" He hissed, quickly shaking off and tucking himself back in without looking at the other man.

"I'm curious, that's all," Kaiba replied, cruelty-lined sarcasm flowing from his mouth like blood from a wound. "How long do I get the pleasure of a classroom that doesn't smell like second-class citizen?"

"Fuck you, man," Honda muttered, doing up his zipper and turning to leave. "Out of my way."

"You forgot to wash your hands. I think you'd still got a few seconds to chat, if only in the name of hygiene."

"Go see him yourself, if you care so much. Just don't go while he's awake – we're trying to give him reasons to _stay_ alive, not the other way around." He pushed past Kaiba and unlocked the door, stopping only to turn his head and say: "On second thought, stay the fuck away from him altogether. It's people like you who drove him to where he is now. In fact, next time I see you goading him on and trying to make him feel like shit I promise you I'll break your fucking nose. That's a promise, dipshit."

He left, and Kaiba stood just inside the door, absorbing the information he'd just been given.


	2. Gifts

The piece of paper in Kaiba's coat pocket was worn and wrinkled, the ink blurring from being clasped tightly for many minutes on end. 'Jounouchi Katsuya: Rm 264', it read. He looked at his watch, frowning as the hand slipped past midnight. What would be the point of visiting him? It would be a depressing sight – and Jounouchi would want nothing to do with him. At the same time, Kaiba desperately wanted to confirm his suspicions one way or the other.

He entered the hospital. Visiting hours didn't apply to Kaiba Seto: he'd seen to that two years ago when Mokuba had his adenoids removed and purchased a special pass by means of a rather lovely donation. It wasn't bribery, really. A victimless crime, and one that allowed him then to walk down the hallways undisturbed.

The door opened, and there he lay hooked up to a monitor and an IV drip. He'd been right to anticipate the sight being a disheartening one. Kaiba found his eyes drawn sadly to the restraints that kept Jounouchi's wrists firmly away from sharp objects and medication. Questioningly investigating the darkened room, he walked to the table and picked up a translucent orange bottle, reading the label. Antidepressants. Was Honda right? Was he responsible for this?

Before he had the opportunity to feel guilty, Kaiba heard movement in the bed and quickly put the bottle back down. He turned to watch as the bed-ridden young man opened his eyes and cast his attention about.

"Dad?"

If the guilt hadn't had the opportunity to surface before, it struck sharp and heady now. Kaiba knew, from eavesdropping, that Katsuya's father had died in a violent car crash almost a year ago. He felt like a criminal for being in this room, but he kept his composure.

"Try again," he muttered, half attempting a smile. To Jounouchi, whose eyes had finally focused, it looked sinister and mocking.

"Fuckin' 'ell," he croaked, squeezing his eyes shut again and leaning his head back, unaware of how it drew the other man's eyes to his neck and jaw. "What're you doin' here? M'I not havin' a shitty 'nuff day as it is?"

"I was curious," Kaiba informed him. "I'm going to assume from the restraints you really did something as stupid as trying to kill yourself."

"Yeah, well, sometimes people do stupid things," was the lacklustre reply.

"How did you do it?"

The pause that followed was horrible. Neither of them could believe he'd actually asked that question. Neither of them were sure if he'd actually get an answer. Kaiba waited for the 'none of your business', but it never came. Jounouchi waited for the stinging, sarcastic remark, but that too lay dormant. Longer and longer they waited for the other to speak, but, weary and quickly becoming apathetic, Jounouchi answered.

"I swallowed a bunch of prescription sleeping pills."

"Ah."

There was another pause, and Jounouchi hoped for a while that maybe, while he'd been lying there with his eyes closed, the rich bastard had slipped away. He cracked open an eye and found that it wasn't so.

"Isn't your curiosity satisfied yet? Get lost, you freak. I just want to sleep." Kaiba sighed, leaned over him to tug the covers up another few inches so that they covered more than just his legs, and then left the room without another word.

o o o o o

The next night around eleven, Kaiba came back to Jounouchi's room again. He found the blonde sleeping and so pulled up a chair, watching him. The tall, looming brunette was still there at eleven-thirty when a nurse came in to check on the patient, changing his drip-bag and checking his vitals. At first she tried to make quiet conversation with Jounouchi's nocturnal visitor, but found he had no interest in interaction; she just assumed he was horror-stricken by what his relative had nearly accomplished and left him be.

Kaiba was still there at three minutes to one when Jounouchi awakened.

"Tell me why you did it. What you were thinking."

"Leave me alone," Jounouchi begged of him, wanting to roll over and hide from the world, but unable to. Kaiba saw the jerk of limbs and heard the grunt of frustration when his wrists met with restriction. He saw a possibility, and went to shut the door. Fear crept into Jounouchi's blood. "What are you doing?"

"I'll undo the restraints if you answer my question. You just have to put them back on before I leave."

"Fuck you, man. They're annoying, but not half as annoying as you demanding to know shit about me that's none of your business. I'm not some kind of rat you can study. Go hang around the terminal disease section or something – maybe you'll do the world a favour and catch something good."

o o o o o

The following night, a few minutes before eleven, Kaiba went to Jounouchi's room again. This time he was awake to bristle when the invasion took place.

"Why are you here??"

"What's your favourite song?"

"...what?"

"Overdosing on sleeping pills doesn't make you deaf, Jounouchi. I asked you what your favourite song was." The tasteless insult caused a bitter grinding inside Jounouchi's chest and removed any thoughts of Seto being genuinely interested in his taste in music from his mind.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just answer the question."

o o o o o

The next night, Seto brought an MP3 player with him, stocked with the songs they had eventually ended up discussing the previous evening. When Jounouchi finally fell asleep around three in the morning, Kaiba gently removed the headphones from his ears and left. After that he made it a point to learn about his favourite movies, books, even cartoon characters. Seto commit to memory his favourite brand of soda, flavour of pudding, and type of drink. He was there every night, sometimes letting Jouno talk on for hours and hours, sometimes quietly reading while the other man slept or watched a movie on the portable DVD player Seto occasionally brought with him. By the second week, it was ritual for Kaiba to undo the wrist restraints when he arrived and put them back on only when Jounouchi had fallen asleep and he felt it time to leave.

Three weeks passed this way, and remarkably, although Seto learned a good deal about Jounouchi's life, Jounouchi still knew almost nothing about his nightly guest. At times he could be cruel, but he always made up for it with some wordless gesture like bringing a batch of music or a movie. Throughout the conversations, never once did Seto let on anything about himself or about the motivation behind his visits. When his friends came to see him during the day or to accompany him to counselling sessions, he made no mention of Kaiba Seto and his bizarre change of personality.

On the evening before Jounouchi was scheduled to be discharged, Seto arrived an hour later than usual. As he stepped into the room and closed the door, he was met with complaints about his tardiness and confusion at the unaccustomed lack of punctuality. While watching his strange caretaker unbuckling his restraints, Jounouchi let slip the phrase, "waiting for you", which made the other man smile.

"You wait up for me, do you?" Kaiba chuckled, standing back and watching as wrists were rubbed and a back stretched.

"Not like I have anythin' better to do in this bloody place this time of night," replied Jounouchi rather defensively.

"I've got some last questions for you before you leave tomorrow."

"This game never gets old, does it?"

"You say that as if you don't enjoy it."

"Alright, ask your damn questions."

"Do you ever find yourself thinking of men as attractive?" No ounce of emotion leaked into his tone as Kaiba posed the question, peering after Jounouchi as he went to the window and opened it to get some fresh air.

"Yeah. Sometimes." His reply was off-hand and casual, but he certainly couldn't rival Kaiba in terms of concealing the feelings in his voice. There was an uncertain quiver to his tone, and a sort of fear. Was his sudden, inexplicable trust in Kaiba justified, or was he just giving the bastard blackmail material?

"Only sometimes?" Again, there was no curiosity, no accusation, no disgust. It was impossible to tell what the point of the questioning was.

"I like chicks too." And there. He'd sealed his fate.

" So you would consider yourself a bisexual, then."

"If you're gonna get all technical, I guess so, yeah." He knew it wasn't likely to get an answer, but Jounouchi decided to try turning the question back on Seto. "What about you? You ever find yourself sportin' a chubby over a dude?"

"You're very crude and tactless, you know that." Of course, he avoided answering. To be expected. "On a more serious note now, I'm afraid..." With his hands on the windowsill and his eyes on the city, Jounouchi failed to observe that his company had begun moving, and so was surprised when Kaiba placed himself next to him, also gazing out at the lights of Domino. "Why did you decide to kill yourself?"

It took him a long time to work up the courage to answer. Even in the therapy sessions the hospital staff had forced upon him, Jounouchi had been unable to open up and explain the things that drove him to that point. He started by listing the things he wasn't ashamed to admit. "Stress. M'dad dying kind of... fucked with my head. My grades are kind of shit." He raised a hand to the glass pane, enjoying its smooth, cool texture. It was nice that Seto was standing close enough to seem like he kind of cared, but wasn't actually looking at him. "I felt like I'd dug myself into a hole. Still sorta do. 'Specially with the work. I- I dunno, a lot if it I don't get, and that pisses me off, so I don't do it. But I guess that makes it harder to understand everything that comes after it. And livin' alone has kind of been... just, it sucked. I sorta figured, I had all these problems, right, but if I died, my problems died with me."

Jounouchi's heart clenched in fear as he awaited a response. He wasn't sure if he'd be mocked, which would be unfortunately expected, or comforted, which would be nice but very, very odd.

"I've gotten you something. It's a surprise, so close your eyes." Jounouchi turned around to receive a gift, but was directed to face the window again. The two made eye contact for a moment, and, both wary and eager, the blonde did as asked and then closed his eyes. After a moment, something cold and thin snaked around his neck.

"Open your eyes."

He did, and glanced at the silver smatterings that now decorated his reflection in the window. Jounouchi looked down and ran a finger along the thin chain down to discover –

"Dog tags?" There was no humour in his voice to match the laughter in Kaiba's grin. "Still insist I'm a mutt, huh?"

"Well, you're no groomed pure-bred, that's for sure. Lying to yourself about that won't do anyone a bit of good. Wouldn't change anything." Jouno scoffed and lifted up one of the tags to the light, almost afraid of what they might say. Expecting something like 'Property of Kaiba Seto', he was surprised to see engraved in the heavy pewter a text and a language he didn't recognise.

"Is this English?"

"It's Latin."

"What does it say? I bet it says 'I have a small penis.' I wouldn't put it past you. I'm so not wearing this around people who can read English."

"I told you, it's Latin. That one says 'tabula rasa'."

"What the hell does _that_ mean?"

"A clean slate."

Still holding the curved rectangle of metal, Jounouchi looked suddenly at Seto's face. There was feeling there, feeling that made him want to cry for lack of a better way to express it. But he wouldn't cry in front of Kaiba, of all people, especially now, because despite how strongly the inscription made him feel, there seemed to be no similar emotion in the giver of the gift. He looked... well, not unhappy, but impassive. Uncaring. Katsuya wanted to thank him, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. It would be easier if he could say for certain that he was a friend, but he still couldn't tell. He still had his suspicions that Kaiba's sudden interest in him was brought on by the fact that he was emotionally flawed, something interesting to study like a bug under a magnifying glass.

Pushing away the rather unnerving thought, he moved on to the other tag. "What does this one say?" Even as he picked it up between forefinger and thumb, he could feel that this one had writing on both sides.

"That side reads 'cave canem' – beware of dog."

"You. Wow. God _damn_ you're an asshole. What's this on the other side? Another insult?" He flipped it over and found, to his relief, something he could actually read. "Whose address is this?"

"Mine."

Perhaps afraid of Jounouchi's reaction to this revelation, Kaiba, for the first time since his initial visit, left abruptly without waiting for his ward to fall asleep. Jounouchi was left to peer at the ambiguous pieces of Latin and wonder not at what they translated to, but what they really _meant_.


	3. Discharged

Jounouchi awoke to the grinning face of his dear friend Yugi.

"You ready to get out of here?"

"Hell yes."

Happiness pushed past the blonde's underlying doubts at the thought; Yugi and his grandfather had offered to let him stay with them for the next month or so until he got back on his feet. The idea of not going home to his empty apartment was one that cheered Jounouchi up to no ends, and he grinned back at his short companion. As he sat up, Yugi noticed two things. The first was that Jounouchi was no longer in restraints; this he put down to it being his release date, and his having come far in his counselling. The second was that Jou was wearing dog tags that had not been there the last time Yugi had visited him.

"Where'd you get those? I don't think I've seen them before."

"What, these?" Jounouchi slipped the tags down underneath his hospital gown, cringing mentally at their coldness. He didn't know if Yugi could read Latin, but he wasn't taking any chances. The Pharaoh might be able to read it too, considering how he lived in ancient times, and all. He was faced with a dilemma. His mind quickly concocted a story about how they were the ones from his father he wore during their most recent tournament, and he'd asked someone to go to the apartment to get them for him. But there was nobody who'd do that for him that Yugi couldn't check the story with. He could say a pretty nurse had taken a liking to him and had bought him the tags as a get-well gift. Or maybe he could claim they were a part of his therapy.

But all of those involved lying to Yugi. Wasn't that what had gotten him here? Lying to his friends to save them from worrying? Concealing things that worried him and never going to anyone for help?

"Y'can't tell anyone, a'right?"

Yugi nodded, an inquisitive perk to his eyebrows.

"Kaiba showed up with'em. Not sure why, but he did." It didn't take Yugi long to get the joke.

"_Kaiba_ brought you _dog tags_. What a jerk. Why're you still wearing them? You do get what the implication is, right?"

"Of course I do. It's just... I dunno, they're kinda nice quality and I feel like I'm stealin' from him. Like the joke's on him for wasting money on something so petty." That was partially true, but he still wasn't being completely honest with Yugi – or with himself, for that matter. The idea that he could start over after this, that he had a clean slate... well, it appealed to him a hell of a lot more than the reality that this could haunt him for the rest of his life and permanently cripple his friends' ability to trust him with anything potentially lethal.

"Oh, I get it. Yeah, that is true!" Yugi's eyes lit up with the pleasure of knowing Jounouchi hadn't taken to heart a jab from Kaiba Seto, and that he'd even been able to turn it around and see the silver lining. This was a good thing! "So, are you ready to ditch this joint? I brought you some clothes from your apartment to change into, and grandpa will drive us by your place so you can grab whatever you need for the next few weeks."

"Thanks, man. Gimme a second, I'll just change real quick."

o o o o o

"Surprise!" Shouted the group in semi-unison, crowding around Jounouchi as he stepped through the front door of the Motou residence. It seemed like everyone was there; Yugi had collected together all of Jounouchi's friends for the 'welcome back party', including some of the more distant people like Ryou and Otogi. A number of them grappled him in hugs that ranged from gentle to back-breaking, while others hung back with smiles that were sad for his plight, but happy he had been rescued from that particular precipice.

Almost as exciting as seeing all his friends out of the oppressive atmosphere of a visit to the hospital was the fact that on the coffee table was a fair deal of junk food, of which Jounouchi had been painfully deprived for much too long. In the merriment of the party, his brush with death and struggles with depression seemed all but forgotten, and for this he was thankful. Although having it completely ignored would have thrown him further down the path of unhappiness, being fawned over and constantly reminded of it would have done him no better. The only small snag that made the evening slightly less than perfect was the odd feeling he had to endure every time the tags hidden under his shirt brushed against him and made his mind flit to those nights spent with Kaiba at his side.

He wondered what sort of person he'd be like at parties, and tried to imagine him on the couch, squashed between Anzu and Otogi, laughing at the dice-master's animated storytelling or smiling at Honda as he passed the chips. Jounouchi identified the mental image for what it was; pure fantasy. He'd been to parties where guys like Kaiba couldn't fit in, stood on the corners unable to socialize because of their own ego or intelligence, and as much as he hated to admit it, it was simply an established fact that Kaiba was damn smart- so much so that people who should've been his peers probably looked to him like inferiors. He'd never be able to get along with Jounouchi and his friends in the environment of the real world, and as he came to that conclusion the blonde teenager felt a surprising more amount of regret that he would've expected himself to feel. It wasn't a big loss, really.

So the party went on, happy smiles covering up concern and unease, but genuine pleasure at Jounouchi's return to health welling up in brief moments here and there within the hearts of his companions. At about one in the morning, Yugi's grandfather gave the guests a subtle nudge towards the door, and they departed with a few last hugs and murmured sentiments for dear Jouno. Once Yugi had gone to bed and he had settled himself in the guest room, Jounouchi sat up for a little while examining the dog tags in the blue glow of the alarm clock he'd brought from his apartment. That night he masturbated for the first time since he'd been hospitalized, feeling guilty. He told himself the guilt was for doing it down the hall from Grandpa Motou, and while that was certainly part of it, the majority of that uncomfortable, self-conscious feeling was because of who he fantasized about while he brought himself to climax.

o o o o o

"Kaiba Seto."

The young man raised his hand automatically at his name without looking up from the book he was reading. There had been no communication between him and Jounouchi that Monday, although many people who'd had even less contact with the blonde welcomed him back. Everyone seemed to know that he'd been in the hospital, but not why. There was a rumour floating around that he'd caught mono from his last girlfriend, a gorgeous but fickle college girl who'd enjoyed his company physically but grew weary of his personality after about three weeks. That was a good enough reason to miss half a month of school, the student populace decided, and Jounouchi saw no harm in letting them think that.

He and Kaiba had glanced at each other a few times, naturally, but their timing was such that their eyes never met, and there was no recognition there of anything special, anything sustainable, anything worth pursuing. Both of them decided that the nights in the hospital had meant nothing to the other. Both were certain that the other had no interest, and convinced themselves it would probably be easier to continue life as they had been doing.

That didn't last long.

As things went back to normal, Jounouchi's attitude towards school began to slip back into apathy. The teachers tried to be understanding, but they never understood anything. Yugi tried to be supportive, but it wore on his nerves and stressed both of them out when he tried to explain the homework and Jounouchi continued to struggle with it. He recognised that he friend was falling back into that state of mind, and did what he could to help; they went to parties, visited the arcade, saw movies, and even tried doing walks in the park. The only thing that changed was that Jounouchi started getting into fights again, taking out his frustration on the other kids with shitty home lives and miserable grades, the kids he hated to look at because he knew he was becoming one of them. It was during one of these after-school scuffles that his relationship with Kaiba finally took a new turn.


	4. Complicated

"C'mere, you fucker. I'll make you wish y'were dead!"

"Fuck you! Asshole!"

Stray pieces of gravel crunched under their sneakers, scraping against the pavement as the two boys scuffled against the wall that was the back of the cafeteria kitchen. Pumped full of adrenaline, the two grappled, their torsos twisting this way and that as each boy tried to turn to his advantage and land a hit. Jounouchi was taller but lighter, and he knew how to use the other guy's weight for his own advantage, pushing and then giving way, pulling instead. His opponent was winded as he was thrown back-first against the brick wall, uttering a grunt of pain and falling into a crouch. He'd narrowly avoided cracking his head pretty hard, but wasn't aware of it. "I'll fucking kill you!"

Jounouchi began to preen, relishing this brief moment of triumph in a world of disappointment and failure, when a pair of arms wrapped around his neck and began to pull back. The fallen adversary cheered maliciously as his friends arrived- his friends from the baseball team.

"Think you can just beat the shit out of whoever you like, Jounouchi?" The wooden bat connected with his stomach with a sound like a heavy wad of dough being dropped several feet onto a linoleum floor. Jouno, in his dazed state, thought back for a fraction of a second to his brief stint working at a pizza parlour. He regained his senses and began to struggle, but he found himself being thrust face-first into the wall, feeling a sharp rush of pain as he cheek scraped its rough surface with a violent jerk; it was a pain quickly forgotten when the biggest of the three began to twist his arm behind his back while crushing him against the wall. "Now you know who to leave alone in this school, don't you, you little shit? Go back to playing cards like a good little kid and don't even try to hold yourself on the same level as us big boys."

The blonde, suddenly weak and down from his endorphin high, cried out at the impact of the bat against the back of his knee, made worse by the smash of his kneecap against the wall.

"Teach the little asshole a lesson. Let's kick the shit out of him and leave him for dead." That was the boy who'd been initially defeated when on his own.

"Fight me on your own, you twat. Coward – hiding behind your fucking jock friends!" Jounouchi knew that his backtalk would only make him hurt all the more in the morning, but at least it'd be his body that hurt and not his pride.

o o o o o

The next day at school, he was damn sore. He didn't dare ask Yugi for any more painkillers, fearing some kind of paranoid, over-protective response, or yet another admonition for starting a fight. The day was yet another miserable one until some time at lunch when, while listening to Anzu chatting away about some website or a video or something, Jounouchi caught sight of the three guys. They were all bruised about the face and walking stiffly, and one of them had some kind of bandage on his nose. Maybe it was broken. Baffled yet sadistically pleased, he turned to Honda.

"Hey, did you and a couple guys jump those dickwads this morning?" He jerked his thumb in their direction. His friend shook his head.

"They looked like that first period. I thought you did that."

Although his pride briefly swelled at the thought that Honda believed him capable of that sort of mass destruction, Jounouchi was even more puzzled at this revelation. He watched them all lunch period, barely hearing his friends talking around him, and was finally rewarded with some kind of answer towards the end of the period; he saw Kaiba stroll by their table and stop there. They cringed, and he smirked, and then he looked over, and his and Jounouchi's eyes met. The smirk left his face and he walked away from the losers' table.

Jouno confronted him after school like he would any other person he hoped to engage in some kind of fight, slipping away from Yugi and following Kaiba out of the building until they were somewhere secluded. He thought he'd been fairly subtle, so Jounouchi was surprised when Kaiba, without turning around, demanded to know why he was following him. The tone the pampered CEO used made his heart constrict and his senses rush to his chest, hyper-aware of the dog tags hidden there.

"I'm lookin' for an explanation."

"Aren't we all?"

"Listen, you..." Jounouchi stopped himself. He didn't want to go back to that one-sided, name-calling rivalry. He didn't want to start with an insult. "Look, what'd y'do to those guys? The baseball jocks?"

"The ones that seemed to get such pleasure from ganging up on you? I felt like playing the vigilante. I've been reading too many comic books." Kaiba was being sarcastic, clearly, but Jounouchi couldn't tell if it was cruel sarcasm or friendly sarcasm, even once Kaiba turned around to face his questioner. Everything about him was always so unreadable.

"So you saw that? Last night?" Although he gave no reply, Kaiba's body language said 'yes'. "And you stood there and watched? And let them beat the crap out of me?" Jouno was steadily becoming angrier. It was the only real emotion he felt those days.

"It was your fight. I just happened to start my own with those same people later that evening. What does it matter?"

"It matters that- well I mean, I was bein' ganged up on! I woulda been pissed if you'd jumped in when I was- like, just, the one on one. But c'mon. He had a fucking bat. I could hardly walk today. You could've saved my ass!"

"And then where would that have left us? You'd owe me, and that's hardly a situation you could afford to be in." Kaiba's words were the wrong ones.

"You callin' me poor?" Jounouchi growled, taking a very aggressive step towards the taller man. "Cause if you are, I swear to God-" In response, Kaiba snorted.

"Don't be so eager to get your ass kicked all over again. You wanted your explanation, you got it. Now go home." He turned to leave, but got only a few steps away before a hand closed around his arm. Automatically Kaiba's hand darted to the wrist of the hand that held him, and pressed mercilessly. He was distracted, however. He could feel so much in that one grip; he could feel how coarse Jounouchi's palm was, he could feel muscle and tightened tendons, and the defined shape of his wrist bone. He wanted to maintain that brief connection, that flickering of some kind of surface-level understanding, for as long as possible. Kaiba knew that if he did that, he'd start to want more.

"Hey. I'm not done. I've still got questions." Jounouchi was oblivious to Kaiba's inner turmoil, and only vaguely aware of the little thoughts that appeared in his head upon the skin-to-skin contact. He twisted in his hold to look him in the eye, and they were only a short distance away from each other. It wasn't the first time. "Why would you, of all people, be the one who visits me every single day in the hospital? It came outta nowhere. And then after that, bam, it's like it never happened. Like it's some kinda dirty secret."

"Is it, Jounouchi? Is this your dirty secret?" Those eyes (so blue, so cold, so empty of meaning) darted to the sliver of chain that was just barely visible above Jouno's shirt collar. "That you spent time with the infamous Kaiba Seto, and found him tolerable?"

It was inexplicable, the shame that Jounouchi suddenly felt. He stammered, before spluttering: "Well, what did you want me to do? Introduce you to my friends who you've spent the last few years, insultin' and hurtin', and then we'll all go be friends and pet bunnies and jerk off rainbows? Little more complicated than that. Plus you'd never dare be seen with a piece'a dirt like me, remember? Think of what it'd do t'yer reputation. Your little brother might decide to stop hangin' out with you!" It was Jounouchi's turn to take things too far, and as this barb found its target in Kaiba's heart, he tightened his grip quite painfully and then, just as suddenly, turned to stalk away. "Hold it!" Jou protested, and picked up his heels to walk alongside him. "Jus'... it's just..." He didn't know what to say. That he was depressed and lonely and wanted somebody to talk to, somebody to listen to him and make him feel important?

There was a laugh. Kaiba had never made him feel like anything other than a starving, homeless street-rat before. So why had it changed? Or had it not changed, and he was just reading into things way too much because of how fucked in the head he was? Maybe it was just hormones or desperation. He had to admit to himself he had been getting kind of bored of girls.

As Jounouchi struggled with words, Kaiba regained his temper and stopped walking. They stood in the shadow of a building just beyond the outskirts of school property. There was nobody around, and somehow, impossibly, they looked at each other with the same guilty thought. Jounouchi found himself itching with an energy that stemmed from his loins, a desire to _move_, quickly, suddenly, powerfully. It could have gone either way: the urge might've pushed him to fury, to believing himself deceived yet again by that insufferably arrogant Kaiba Seto, to throwing a punch that would have led to nothing good. It also pushed him to lust, to the recognition of a long-standing loneliness within himself, to moving even closer, close enough to touch Kaiba in that gentle way he'd been touched by women. There was silence as he did neither, and both stared. It was Kaiba who broke the silence.

"Well? What do you want? I have other things to do, you know."

"I want to know what the hell _you_ want. And not like, in general. If you say 'a pony' I'll fuckin' stab you. I wanna know how come you stopped bein' an asshole to me. You always seemed to enjoy it so much." The last part was a little droll, but it slipped past Jounouchi's mental filter as an additional mumble that Kaiba definitely picked up.

"I want..." I want not to be alone, and I want to experience that with you. I want you to look at me the way you looked at all those bimbos you've dated- more than that. I want to know if the sexual tension I've felt jumping between us like electricity every time we duel has just been in my head all this time. "It's complicated. It would bore you if I tried to explain it. Not enough pictures." Jounouchi rolled his eyes at the half-assed jab.

It crossed Seto's mind to demonstrate, without the use of cumbersome, misleading words, what it was secretly driving his interest in this enigmatic blonde, and the inexplicable concern he felt when that character nearly disappeared from the world. They were so close. He just wanted to touch him a little bit. Some excuse. Kaiba grabbed one of those shoulders, not roughly, but in a way that couldn't be mistaken as sensual. He meant to say something that would make Jounouchi drop the subject, but that touch was his undoing. The composure he worked so hard at maintaining cracked. His breath came harder, faster, and he experienced that same rush of internal motion that Jouno felt only moments before. He acted.

When Kaiba dipped his face down and towards his, Jounouchi told himself he was seeing things that weren't there until the very moment that their lips met. And then, by the time he couldn't argue any more with himself whether or not Kaiba had just kissed him, it was over. The kiss, the encounter, the discussion; everything was over, and the other man was gone. Once Jouno was sure he was out of sight and out of earshot, he touched his mouth, wondering if he'd just imagined it, and muttered,

"So... that's what he wants from me." Of course, if he said it like that, it seemed bad. He tried saying it in a different way. "I'm what he wants." But that one made him feel too self-important, too cocky. It was almost like saying 'He wants me,' which he still wasn't even sure was true. Really, all he could say for sure was that Kaiba had kissed him. Although slightly less ambiguous than "It's complicated," it still left a lot open to interpretation.

Huh.

He tried saying it a different way. "He wants to kiss me." That one didn't sound so bad.

Now, of course, it meant he would have to start trying to figure out what it was that he himself wanted.


	5. Answers

Days had passed since the bizarre encounter during which Kaiba had pierced a small hole in the sexual tension between the two with his brief acknowledgement of interest. To Jounouchi's frustration, nothing seemed to have changed. If anything, the two had become more distant and dismissive of one another than before; Kaiba waited to see a result and Jounouchi felt as though his peers could sense what had happened and tried to deny the possibility through his attitude towards their tall, blue-eyed rival.

And somehow, despite that, Jounouchi found himself trudging up the long driveway to the Kaiba mansion one Saturday afternoon. He clutched the pewter tag in the palm of his right hand tightly, checking now and then to make sure he'd read the street name right. Surely, if Kaiba had given him his address, he intended for Jouno to visit the house at some point. The thought of confronting him face to face on his own turf was a little terrifying, especially in the intimidating atmosphere of threatening wrought-iron gates and oversized doors. Part of him was surprised he'd been able to get all the way up to the building without being hassled by some lackey with an earpiece and a black suit.

The day before, he'd tried to approach Kaiba in the hallways. Jounouchi had been able to do nothing but quail and turn away from the sting of the condescending glare that greeted his attempt. After school he was too jaded by the experience to vent by bullying and went straight to the Motou residence and into the guest room. He sat there broiling in his own confusion and frustration until Yugi joined him. It had been a simple discussion; no tears were shed, no voices raised, and only a tiny flicker of soul bared. Yugi had been accommodating. He didn't press the issue, and merely sat and provided Jounouchi with his supportive presence until the stressed young man began to talk without prompting.

"I don't get it, Yug'. Why would a guy be a total dick to me for a bunch a' years, then I try to kill myself and he's nice to me the whole time I'm in the hospital, then I get out and it's kinda like it never happened. But it's... more complicated than that, because he's lookin'out for me, or... or stalkin' me, or _somethin'_."

"Can I ask who?"

"It'll be fuckin' weird, man. It's weird enough telling you about it in the first place."

"Kaiba?"

Jouno tried to be surprised by Yugi's deductive reasoning, but he found himself smiling grimly at how much he'd underestimated his best friend. "Yeah."

"I saw you start towards him today. The look he gave you could kill kittens."

"Yeah." Jounouchi had sighed, putting his head in his hands. "So what do I do?"



"Obviously I don't know the whole story. Maybe you could... I... well, I've never really known how to deal with him, to be honest. I generally try not to let him get to me, and you should too."

But the more he'd tried to put Kaiba Seto from his mind, the more Katsuya thought about him. He thought about that kiss, and that night he dreamt about long, ambiguous conversations that led to erotic touches and exhilarating happiness. He woke up halfway through the night and fell back asleep, and dreamt about a fast, skin-on-skin encounter that brought him awake smelling like sex and feeling desperate enough to lure in some bimbo for a brief fling. Desperate enough to want to find out what Kaiba could possibly be thinking- what he could possibly intend.

His eyes had gone, not for the first time, to the address on the back of the dog tag.

And that, he told himself, was what led him to these doors, and what brought his hand to its doorbell. Jounouchi told himself he just needed some kind of conclusion so that he could stop dwelling on this and then start trying to pull himself out of depression. He told himself getting Kaiba to stop fucking with his mind (and getting his mind to stop fucking Kaiba) would be the first major step towards recovery.

Even as he heard the doorbell chime, a lock turned and the door swung inward. He blanched at the sight that greeted him. Jouno had been expecting a fat, balding butler, or maybe a maid, or Mokuba or something. He had not been expecting Kaiba, and he had certainly not been expecting him in nothing but slacks with water droplets rolling down his bared shoulders. His half-dressed host muttered something under his breath about a man not being able to shower without his damn beeper going off.

"You take your beeper into the shower?" Jounouch asked incredulously, images of surgically implanted technology floating around in his head for a brief moment, replaced just as quickly by the comical mental image of Kaiba taking a cellphone into the shower and getting electrocuted.

"Of course not," the CEO sighed, impatience touching the fringes of his tone the same way the wet fringes of his bangs touched his brows and tickled at the bridge of his nose. It was a detail that Jounouchi found hard to ignore. "It was attached to my pants, which were lying beside the shower." The scenario seemed to be uncomfortably intimate: not only was Seto standing bare-chested in his front entryway, he'd very casually reminded Jou that he hadn't been wearing pants a moment ago. Jounouchi found himself glancing down and then back again very quickly, drinking in the collarbone, abdomen, hips, thighs, as much as he could get in an instant. Naturally, he looked up to find Seto hadn't by any means missed the direction of those eyes.

A prickle ran down his spine in the fraction of an instant that he time to be afraid of how Kaiba would react. There were a couple times when he'd given a man that look and had the shit kicked out of him. He wasn't sure if he should be relieved when the subject of his accidental attention just cocked an eyebrow, looking a little bit bored, a little bit smug, a little bit amused. Not angry, though, which was a good thing. Or... at least he thought it was a good thing.



"I assume you're here to talk." Commanding him to enter without words, Kaiba backed up and held open the door. "Just make sure to take off your shoes. I wouldn't want the maids to have to clean u-"

"Don't say it. You fucking say 'dog tracks' I'm just gonna turn around and leave. I didn't come all this way just to take your abuse, Kaiba." Jounouchi's quick snap caught the other man off guard, making both eyebrows go up this time.

"Very well. I was serious about taking off your shoes, though."

"Yeah, yeah," Jouno grunted, stepping inside and kicking his sneakers off haphazardly. Kaiba shut and locked the door behind him and led him through the house. Jounouchi got the brief impression of looming ceilings, curving carpeted staircases and polished wooden wall-panels before he was directed into what looked like a den- having, of course, taken a little look or two at the back of Seto's neck and his bare shoulder-blades while he had the chance. He flopped down, unbidden, onto a leather couch the colour of which could only be described as the unholy union of maroon and vomit.

Kaiba settled himself in a matching armchair across from him, combing his fingers through his wet hair and accidentally making his bangs slick back for a moment. It was bizarre to see so much of his forehead, and to gaze at those eyes without their being in shadow. It was as if, Jounouchi thought to himself as Kaiba met his eyes, some sort of spell was cast over this house so that Kaiba knew whenever someone was looking at him. Or maybe he always knew, and just didn't react. He could be one of those people who could feel when they were being watched. Scary thought.

"Why'd you kiss me?" Jounouchi blurted out suddenly, unable to look away as he did.

"What, you can't figure it out for yourself? I'm not running a kindergarten class here."

"No, _that_'s what I can't figure out," he growled, turning a touch red in the face. "What the fuck is with this random personality change? You hate me, you visit me in the hospital, you hate me, you kiss me, you hate me. It's getting damn confusing and I've got enough shit to think about right now without freaking out over this. I lay there and answered your questions pretty much the whole time I was stuck in that damn bed, I think it's only right you answer mine." Kaiba was quiet for a while, leaning back into the chair, damp skin protesting against its clingy surface.

"I wanted to know how you would react."

"Oh, great," Jouno mumbled, slumping and raising a hand to rub his temples. Sarcastically, he continued, "So my emotions are like a science experiment or something. Right. Makes perfect sense now."

"I wanted to know because I was... trying to figure out whether or not I'd ever get to do it again."



Katsuya blanched. The rich and ruthless Kaiba actually understood the concept of not always getting everything he wanted? And what he wanted was...?

"What do you- I mean, why would you even want to?"

"Do you find me attractive?" The question was quick, but didn't reveal an ounce of self-doubt or actual interest in the answer. Kaiba's face remained carefully blank.

"What does that have to do with any of this?" Retorted the blonde, trying to divert attention away from it, in the hopes that he could avoid admitting to the thoughts that had plagued him for so long. He didn't get a reply, though, and Seto just kept staring at him in that intense way, waiting. It felt like there was nothing to do but... be honest. "Yeah," Jounouchi muttered, his eyes diverting to examine the expensive-looking carpet, "Y'ain't half-bad."

"Now we're making progress," Kaiba murmured very quietly, sliding, serpent-like, from his seat. He joined Jounchi, to the man's combined horror and excitement, on the couch. Katsuya remembered being thrown like a rag doll by those arms, made helpless in the face of what he assumed was a trained fighter, and now he was drinking in the curve and shadow of the very muscle and sinew responsible for those humiliations. He looked, and he knew that it was obvious, tactless, he knew that Kaiba could see quite clearly where his attention was. Heat began to swim through parts of his body he had only very recently associated with thoughts of Kaiba Seto.

It took Jounouchi a moment, but Kaiba was determined not to make the second move. He had held out his hand, so to speak, and was waiting to see if the stay would come to him of its own volition. At last he gathered his courage (his libido cheering it on) and leaned forward to kiss him. Although Seto's chin was smooth, Katsuya's was not, and a light bristle prickled the CEO where their faces touched. Initially hesitant, the kiss grew excited, hands reaching for shoulders, necks, jawlines. A man's touch- so different, Jouno thought, from the embrace of a woman, but so similar. Human, yes, that wonderful feeling of skin-on-skin, but not as soft and delicate, less yielding, more defined and powerful. The sheer exoticness of the difference brought a new wave of excitement through his already peaking levels of arousal. How had he gone so fast from trepidation to passion?

Suddenly afraid of his own desires, he pulled himself away from that face, that naked torso, and tried to collect his thoughts. There was a hand on his shoulder, a finger making a circuit around his neck, then dipping down at the front of his collar. Seto pulled the dog tags out from under his shirt. They were warm from being caught between the fabric and Jounouchi's warm chest.

"You wear them?"



"All the time." It sounded better than 'every day', which was the real answer. Less creepy and obsessive. Either way, it seemed to please Seto, who swallowed heavily and nodded. It crossed Jounouchi's mind that maybe the revelation was a turn-on to him, which would make sense; he did seem to have a thing for being in control.

Without warning, Kaiba dropped the tags and let them swing back into position hanging from the chain. He stood. "Come on. I want to show you something."


End file.
